Unused electronics are the bane of the modern life. Perfectly functional gadgets sit quietly in a corner of the store room, doing nothing. Old LCD monitors are a perfect example of that. Whether you bought a new one or switched to a laptop, what do you do with it now? Turns out, a lot.

Perhaps the best implementation of marrying a Raspberry Pi and an old monitor is the PiClock. When one developer had free time on a Saturday afternoon, he built the wonderful gadget you see above. And like any good developer with a Pi, he made the whole thing open-source, so anyone can build their own.

The PiClock displays the time through a simple clock, the weather forecast in your area, and also a radar map. Because who doesn’t need to check a radar map at all times?

There’s a step-by-step guide for everything you need, but it’s really nothing more than the monitor, the Pi, and the power supply. A keyboard and mouse will be needed for setup, as well as an active Wi-Fi connection, but then you’re done.

Hack It Into a “Your-Eyes-Only” Monitor

Sometimes, you’re working on something private in an open office, or browsing certain *cough* sites *cough* at home. You can’t have your colleagues or kids see what’s on the screen. To keep snooping eyes at bay, make a “your-eyes-only” monitor from an old one.

To anyone else, it is going to look like a blank white monitor with nothing on it. But wearing a special pair of spectacles, you’ll be able to see things on it like a regular monitor. It’s magic! Here’s what it looks like and the process:

The reason you should use an old monitor is that things can go wrong. You will be disassembling and then reassembling the monitor, along with cutting out the anti-glare and polarizing films. You’ll also need to separate the polarizing film from the anti-glare one. It’s a tough process, but dimovi’s guide at Instructables is thorough and precise. Just remember, while others can’t see what’s on your screen, they can still see where your hands are.

The simpler of the two is the plain mirror. Instructables user MrAdventure put together a simple guide for it. Just get a screwdriver and open up your monitor. Strip out all the parts, you just need the screen. As he puts it poetically:

The LCD has several layers. Find the shiny part and make it point outwards, the better to see your beautiful face with! Now screw it back together in a few places so the frame holds all the guts in.

You can then put the screen back into the monitor case if you want a desk mirror. Otherwise, just hang this thing on a wall.

You’ll need some additional material for this one, including a Raspberry Pi, a double-sided mirror, 2×4 wooden bars, cables and woodworking tools. If you do it right, you’ll end up with a beautiful smart mirror like the one above. Girlfriend not included, nerds.

A Few Other Ways to Repurpose

If none of these are up your alley or fit your requirements, then there are other things you can do, weirdo. Here, have a gander:

Turn that monitor into a TV: It’s an obvious one, but heck, why not? Here’s a simple Instructable to do it.

Your CRT monitor is meant for art or decoration: If you still have an old CRT monitor around, then here you go grandpa, Buzzfeed has a few thoughts.

I came across above article because I was not able to see desktop icons on Pi 3.
All the installations went fine, it first showed me chrome browser as well. But later when the Pi boots up it stops at VNC server and I cannot do anything else. Earlier at least I was getting Openbox through which I could go to command prompt. Now even that is not possible.

I am a complete layman as far as Pi or Linux is concerned. How can first go to command prompt and how can I get GUI on Pi?

One of my favorite ways of disposing off old electronics is to give them away to the local electronics school. The students and teachers there may have use for the parts that are still working (and many of them do work).

fish tank is my favourite :) word about proper disposal of monitors - i think that people still don't do that often..They just get rid of them in simple way..throw them away...just like that. There aren't many who care about recycling nowadays